According to a latest study of municipal councils, English councils are preparing to offload social clubs, athletic facilities, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Increasing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK stated that six out of ten of local authorities are planning to sell assets to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have in the past come under fire for selling playing fields and land to shore up their finances, but they argue they must continue to raise vital cash from property disposals or face insolvency.
This coalition said that a significant number of authorities attempting to generate funds from a fire sale of holdings marked “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials stated they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather growing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Examples of Planned Sales
One local authority in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan featured the disposal of a shopping centre in a local town and a social club in another town to generate £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for Medway council, will additionally be disposed of under the strategy.
Council Tax Increases and Broader Fiscal Pressures
The survey of councils in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of councils will need to increase council taxes next spring to address the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of housing insecurity, and a longstanding accommodation deficit.
The authority explained it will proceed with property disposals after sharp increases in the cost of youth support, special educational needs and disability (Send) provision, adult social care, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these take time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” said a council leader.
He added: “There are demographic pressures which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a local government body, we had a drastic reduction in our central funding from 2010-24, which is extremely difficult.”
National Trends and Forecasts
A survey of county councils recently also found council budgets being stretched by the growing number of young people and older individuals requiring special educational assistance.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by 2029, as they grapple to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have delayed scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until next year after a policy document setting out those changes was recently delayed.
Deprivation and Financial Gaps
According to the latest indices of deprivation (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) covering UK local authorities, many participating urban areas were included in the most deprived in England.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton rank in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 deprivation indices,” noted the report.
“Although only one key city is in the top 10 for deprived neighbourhoods countrywide, cities are much more prone to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The data highlights the scale of difficulties facing local leaders across major urban centers in the next twelve months,” the analysis added.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that accounts for and responds to the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, councils will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to fund, and which to cut, to the detriment of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the past 12 months, the study found.
